Monday, February 27, 2012

Illustration stolen from Alison at Creekside, an excellent place to start learning about Robocon or Suppressiongate or whatever we are calling the latest bit of epic malfeasance on the part of the Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada

The conduct of Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party of Canada is now being described as Nixonian in some quarters and I would find it hard to disagree. They have certainly copied from the Nixon playbook in that they like to claim to represent the 'Silent Majority' and accuse their opponents of being elitists and radicals. They are profoundly anti-intellectual, to the extent that they mistrust science. They are hawkish on foreign policy and love to tout their support for the military.

But most of all, Harper will deny, deny, deny and throw on advisor after another under the bus. Nothing will ever be his fault and he will never acknowledge any error, any awareness of wrongdoing and will never admit to anything, no matter what the evidence.

It kind of reminds me of this song from the Watergate era.

I am willing to take Stephen Harper at his word that he knew nothing about the fraudulent phone campaign that helped him win a majority. But if he didn't know about that one, what else didn't he know?

No one voted for his advisors or campaign staff. He picked them himself, or picked the people who appointed them. He chose the people who decided that it was okay to for the CPC to lie, cheat and steal their way into power and he is the one who must take responsibility.Tweet

he could have, or his senior campaign staff could have without telling him or the second tier staff could have done it. It doesn't matter if he did it or not, it doesn't matter if he knew about it or not -- he is still the one ultimately responsible for it.